CHICAGO — Ironically, I initially missed the brouhaha over the now-infamous Sean Penn interview of El Chapo in Rolling Stone magazine last Saturday night because I’d finally succumbed to watching “Sicario,” the movie about drug cartels in Juarez, Mexico.

I’d put off seeing the critically acclaimed film because it was released at a time when Hollywood seemed to be brimming with star-studded stories about the real drug lords of Latin America.

By the time “Sicario” premiered this past September, Don Winslow’s “The Cartel” had made a literary splash. Hollywood rumors were flying that Leonardo DiCaprio was being courted for the role of DEA agent Art Keller — the archenemy of drug kingpin Adan Barrera, whom Winslow modeled extensively on the real-life Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman-Loera.

Also that summer, Netflix had released “Narcos,” the so-called true-life story of Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar (which I passed on because the series’ trailer implied a glorification of the wealth, sex and violence surrounding the drug trade).

By October, the residents of Juarez, Mexico — where I’d visited in June and found safer than the average South Side of Chicago neighborhood — were making a stink about the fact that “Sicario” perpetuated the myth of a lawless, blood-soaked town.

It was a case of bad timing for a city on the mend. According to the director, Denis Villeneuve, “Sicario” was conceived in 2010 at the height of Juarez’s violence. Yet it debuted in 2015 when the city was well on its way to healing.

Enrique Serrano Escobar, Juarez’s mayor, took out full-page ads in several high circulation newspapers denouncing the film, threatened to sue the producers for defamation and called for boycotts of the movie.

This underscored that as consumers of entertainment, we have a responsibility to choose wisely — our dollars telegraph to content producers what we value and what we’re willing to purchase and consume.

I chose not to pay full price to watch “Sicario” on the big screen but acquiesced to viewing it online all these months later. What I found was a dark film, with less violence and caricature of the drug war than I expected — and zero glorification of either of the armed forces that help patrol it. There was no simplistic “good guys versus bad guys” scenario.

“Sicario” could have done a better job articulating the timeframe during which the events portrayed were set but, all in all, it was a restrained film that, like Winslow’s “The Cartel,” provided a context in which to consider the role the United States plays in the U.S.-Mexico drug war.

Based on what I’ve read about how actor/activist Penn and Mexican screen star Kate del Castillo may have unwittingly helped in the capture of El Chapo, the media circus and the Rolling Stone article have added nothing to a substantive discussion about whether there will ever be an end to spiraling drug-related border violence.

Say what you like about Penn — for starters, that he seems to have a burning interest in Latin America’s bad boys — but you have to marvel at his instincts for self-promotion.

While the media elite are wringing their hands about what his article “means for journalism,” few are addressing the obvious problem with the theatrics of this latest caper: People lap up “true-life” melodrama.

Public trust in both government and journalism is at an all-time low on both sides of the border, and those who make their money off entertainment are reaping the benefits.

But consumers do possess some small measure of power in deciding whether the drug war, which is killing innocents on both sides of the border, is taken seriously or continues to be packaged as entertainment.

For starters, we can deliberately ignore Rolling Stone’s “get,” Penn’s self-serving ramblings and any new movie, TV show, video game or novel that appears to glorify narco-violence rather than actually explain it.

Whoever came up with the trending hash tag:NoSeanPenndejos — a play on the actor’s name and the Spanish word for stupid that basically means, “Don’t be an idiot” — got it right.

Mexican drug violence is a serious issue that won’t be solved by rich, celebrity saviors. Do the drug war’s victims a favor: When you spot exploitation dressed up as edification, just look away.